


long and winding road

by redledgers



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Mutual Pining, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 04:04:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11096511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/pseuds/redledgers
Summary: the road is an open expanse before them





	long and winding road

_It’s short notice and Vax is over apologetic about the whole matter, but the elders want to seal a union on a special day, so he and Keyleth are getting married **soon**. Eight days isn’t really what Vex would consider the shortest notice, but still, she’s going to be there. Her brother wants her there. And because in her overwhelming haste Keyleth forgot to mention anything to Percy, Vex invites him as well._ _He offers to pay, of course, for their flights, but Vex knows how much flights cost, and she’s not one to impose, and so she declines. “It’s too expensive,” she says for the fourth time, “and we can’t take Trinket with us and he has to be there!” So then this becomes their reality_.

 

She’s grateful for this truck sometimes, when it’s not breaking down and desperate for repairs. She’s grateful for it right now, with plastic storage bins in the bed, Trinket in the back using duffel bags as pillows, and someone she can trust to drive it when she’s tired. Here, in the early morning after they departed, two large coffees set in the cup holders, she’s astounded she was able to wheedle Percy into tagging along. (It didn’t take much, if she was honest, but still, she counts dragging him from his place a victory no matter how it happened.) Here, the great beyond beckons as the sun makes landing over the cityscape.

The road is an open expanse before them as soon as they leave the city. The highway shifts from five lanes to three to finally one, an old road with no speed limit and no end; these are the types of roads she has only heard about, and she _loves_ them, loves the freedom they bring. These are the types of roads she wishes to be: aimless and ambling with still a direction and an ending. She’s done this once before with her brother, hitchhiked across the country until they were free, until the looming influence of a father they never wanted was stopped at the border.

At nightfall, they pull over for gas at a truck stop, and Percy takes over, driving further until they find a small roadside motel that’s seen better days—the sign flickers and Vex is convinced it’s haunted, but she won’t sleep in the truck and so they get the only single room left. It’s shitty and drab but there are no bedbugs, and no one pays mind to Trinket. He settles at the foot of the bed, and Vex takes her time in the shower until the water turns lukewarm, but it’s better than being the last to fall asleep. She welcomes Trinket as a divider, snuggling against him even though she is used to this—used to sharing a bed with her brother and soon after her brother and a dog. It’s a welcome reminder of where they’re headed: back to her brother to celebrate happiness. (She does not know what she will do when he is married and will leave, they haven’t been apart ever and she is scared of the prospect.) 

Percy is adequately rumpled in the morning, hair at odd ends and dog slobber on his shoulder, but the coffee at the motel is enough to wake him up. They take breakfast to go and continue on their way toward rivers and mountains. Vex wishes sometimes that this was a sightseeing trip as they cross the states, wishes there was not some sort of time constraint; as they drive down open roads, she forgets these things. She forgets because sometimes the sunlight is unfiltered and she catches him squinting as he looks out his window. She forgets because Trinket sticks his head in her lap and she has to pull over so he can chase invisible creatures around in a backwoods field. She forgets because the din of a passing semi is enough for Percy to sleepily mumble about how it needs more oil or a tune up or some such related repairs.

On the third night they spread out in the bed of the truck at the side of the road and stargaze. Here, the nights are chilly, the sun disappearing behind a mountain range tall enough for snowy peaks in the middle of a desert. Here, outside of the reaches of skyscrapers and bustling highways, the stars shine out across the roaming ground, illuminating galaxies when they are able. He shows her the proud Ursa Major and Ursa Minor bumbling along behind, and she points out Orion, and Trinket warms her right side as she’s tucked against Percy. He pretends not to notice when he hands her a granola bar and she doesn’t move other than to shift so she can open the package. He tells her he wanted to map the stars as a child, before it all happened, but now he finds things to do with his hands that create instead of simply theorize. She follows the lines of his arm, connects the winking stars with the hem of his sleeve and thinks, perhaps. _Perhaps_. 

On the fifth night they push through, alternate driving until the early morning sun rises over the plains and they arrive at their destination, GPS be damned. Trinket runs laps around them when they exit the car, drags his tongue up Vax’s face when her brother crouches down, and the three days they spend with Vax and Keyleth and her tribe are wonderful and welcome. She kisses her brother’s cheek because after all he’s been through, he’s found happiness and she can never begrudge him something so wonderful. Something, a feeling that crawls up her back and spreads loose over her scalp, tells her it would not be so bad to have the same, and in that moment she sees him towering over some children, his shock of white hair now colored in shades of orange by the firelight.

 

_On the way home they stop at a hotel, a real one that he chooses, and she loses herself in him, drowns in the feeling of being loved and forgets about how long it took to get to this place. She pieces together what was a shattered man, once broken and taped together, and in return he sees her for what she is, for who she’s working to become, and when they return home, she holds tightly to his hand. For perhaps she wished to see the sights, but sometimes the stars shine just so that she sees the forest for the trees, and decides it is there she will make her camp, it is there she will take respite. She forgets what it feels like to desire and learns what it feels like to love. So then this becomes their reality._

**Author's Note:**

> why have i just written two fluffy fics in a row ExcuSE mE


End file.
